Like a Peal of Distant Thunder
by saoulbete
Summary: Dark AU of S3. She's glad they're friends again, after the Doyle incident,but something's still different.
1. Chapter 1

A/N - I really meant to wait until after I finished The Rizzoli Kid to post this, since while it is half written it is still only half outline. I don't like leaving 3 unfinished fics out there. But the NCIS x-over I started keeps wanting to be serious case stuff and pure silly comedy at the same time. And if 3x11 is setting the tone for the back half of the season, I am posting this now so I can not feel obligated to work it in. Note that if you're looking for happy, Rizzles fluff look elsewhere. While the outline involves Rizzles, that don't happen til roughly chapter 20 -and these are long chapters. Like this prologue is the shortest thing in this fic. And this is not at all fluffy. This is largely angst. Actually, not largely, entirely. Its a very dark take on s3 and how "off" it felt. But this is an idea done to hell and back with Jane as the focus,(I think every R&I author at some point in time at least kicked around the idea of writing "Jane falls into the bottle") and I decided to flip the script a little bit.

**Trigger fucking warning**: this is a fic that deals with substance abuse. Like main damn focus. If that sort of thing bothers you, I suggest that big button with the arrow to the left.

She sighed, shifting again on the couch. Her leg hurt. And it hurt like _hell._ She had expected some pain, following an emergency fasciotomy, but she hadn't expected it to hurt this badly. Badly enough to get her to think of the pain in terms of profanity. She was fairly sure she'd gotten a whopping three hours of sleep since everything had happened, the pain waking her every time she just started to doze off. The two naproxen she had taken had done absolutely nothing to help, and she sighed, finally getting up and hobbling into the kitchen. She had never been one for painkillers, choosing instead to opt for herbal remedies, meditation, anything else, really. But she'd already tried all of those over the last two days, and nothing else was working.

Besides, she knew there was no way she was going to heal unless she got some rest, and these would help with that. She looked at the bottle that had been given to her when she was discharged from the hospital, reading the label, having paid no attention to what it is they had prescribed to her until now. She mentally calculated equivalent dosages, figuring out just how much would let her sleep, before tipping three out into her hand. Two would kill the pain, three would allow her to sleep without worrying about any too-severe side effects. If she'd had an IV of morphine in the hospital, dripping tens of milligrams into her at once, and this had sixty percent of the efficacy of morphine, then fifteen milligrams would be just right.

She swallowed them down with a large gulp of grapefruit juice, hobbling back to the couch, turning on a documentary she'd been meaning to watch for quite some time. She tried to focus on the program and not the pain, which became easier and easier to do as the pills had their intended effect, slowly easing away the pain. _This is nice, _she mused, shifting slightly as she felt her eyelids start to droop after fifteen minutes, laying back on the couch, making sure to keep her leg elevated on a pillow as she reclined. She felt warm, comfortable, _good._

She thought about the chemical processes involved in this nice feeling she had slowly spreading through her veins. Hydrocodone was converted into hydromorphone by cytochrome P450 2D6, which was the same enzyme responsible for the bioactivation of most medicines. Beta blockers. Antidepressants. Stimulants. Nearly everything pharmacists, chemists had dreamed up over the years. All processed by the liver with the same enzyme in the same way. Hydromorphone then would be carried through her veins through the blood-brain barrier, and bind with the opioid receptors in her brain, the same spots that were activated by endorphins, the body's natural painkillers, causing a release of dopamine, resulting in the same relaxed, happy feeling she often got after a good workout, or a particularly mindblowing orgasm. All the exact same reaction in her brain. Chemicals binding to receptors, releasing neurotransmitters.

But this was different, she mused, as her eyes slipped shut, falling into an easy slumber. She dozed, snippets of dreams flashing through her head, nothing ever staying long enough to count as a proper dream, but all of it good. Images of dance receitals as a child, images of her and Jane, and movie nights and drinks at the Robber and she was so glad that they'd finally stopped fighting. Images of coming into her house and feeling like she was home, like there was someone to come home to, even though in her dream she could never see who that person was.

She dozed, for almost three hours, vaguely aware of the television playing in the background, the noise like a peal of distant thunder in her dreams, and she'd occasionally awaken ever so slightly to catch a moment or two of the documentary before she'd fade back into sleep, embraced by this wonderful, golden warmth.

When she finally awoke, the documentary had long since ended, the science channel lapsing into reruns of _How It's Made_ but she didn't bother changing the channel. This was pop science, true, but it fascinated her nonetheless, as she watched with awe at just how much effort went into making a pencil. To turn raw lumber and graphite into something that she used everyday, the effort involved in the production, it was amazing.

This was exactly what she needed, she thought. After the last few months she'd had, she needed this. Needed to be able to lay back on a couch and watch pop science and let the anger and the misery she'd had pent up over the last few months fade away. It had been almost seven weeks that she and Jane had fought. And they'd been the most miserable seven weeks of her life, without anyone to turn to and confide in. It had shocked her, after the first week, just how much she had missed her best friend. Missed lunches, drinks at the Robber, Friday nights on the couch eating junk food that she would never eat otherwise and watching a sport that she never would have on her own.

By the end of the second week, however, she was too damn proud to admit that she needed Jane. By the end of the third, she was just plain angry. By the end of the fourth, she had resigned herself to making pithy, spiteful comments when they were forced to cross paths at work, taking on Jane's habit of using sarcasm and spite to hide deep emotional wounds. And had carried on as such until two days ago, when Jane had stood by her, even when she was delirious with shock, guarded her, and refused to let her die alone in the woods.

And she'd hated that for someone who had always prided herself for being independent, she'd somehow grown to be accustomed to having Jane, the rest of the Rizzoli family, Frost, Korsak, everyone in her life. She had been used to being alone, before. That all had changed. And spending seven weeks suddenly alone again, she found, quite simply, that she hated it. She missed having the nearly-smothering presence of Angela there, intruding into her life simply because the woman cared. And while Vince and Barry had certainly been cordial to her over the last two months, there was also a certain distance there – unsure of backing either dog in the fight. She was a friend to them, but they worked with Jane, had to rely on her to cover them in dangerous situations, they weren't going to risk making the detective feel betrayed.

But all that was fixed now. Their pride had fallen by the wayside in the face of imminent danger, and everything that they'd fought over had been forgiven. She'd had every reason to be angry with Jane for what had happened, but she found that as much as she wanted to hate Jane for all that had happened, she couldn't. Jane, who had come to see her in the hospital after the shooting – not to offer any comfort, but to get a story straight for internal affairs. Jane, who had forced Angela to chose between them. Jane, who had spent the last few weeks hardly saying more than a thank you the one time she'd held the elevator. She'd certainly not been the one in the wrong during the fight, but she didn't particularly care who was right or wrong, simply that everything was fixed now.

All she could care about was that they were friends again, that she had everything she hadn't realized she had needed in her life until it was pulled away from her was back where it should be. No, lying back here watching pop science was exactly what she needed, watching as one episode drifted into another, as she watched boats, raincoats, handmade ceramic bowls, pop bottles, all crafted, taking a new appreciation in things she took for granted every day. She didn't need to think about anything, she just got to sit back and learn, and rest. This was exactly what the doctor had ordered.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N apologies for any formatting issues. Even the smartphone is rebelling against my technology impaired ass. I wound up having to retype this on the phone, in html, because I had no other way to get it from phone to internet otherwise. And I do actually have this completely finished, its just all written out longhand, waiting to be typed, and edited and perfected. This, right here, this is my baby. I have never slaved over a fic like I have with this. I don't care about what people think of any of my other fics - they're written because they're ideas that won't leave my head. But this - this, I really want feedback on, good, bad and ugly. Even if you hate it, I'd love to hear why you hate it.

She frowned as she scratched idly at her calf, pressing down against the white gauze. She knew _why_ wounds itched as they healed, but it didn't mean she liked it. She knew that she should be thankful for the fact that it was itching at all. That she still _had_ her calf, and that she could feel the itching. And the burning. And the throbbing. And the sharp, intense pain that signified that she had no permanent damage. But as thankful as she was, it didn't mean she enjoyed going through the unpleasantness of a healing wound.

She had always been cautious as a child, and indeed, for most of her life, her skin was largely free of divots and faint white lines. She'd been drawn to activities that weren't likely to damage. She'd picked dressage over show jumping, a less flashy, but just as demanding equestrian discipline. Fencing had padding to protect her from blows of an opponents epee. Even with ballet, the only injuries she'd ever incurred outside of broken toes were sprains, strains, tears. For the first three decades of her life, the only mars to otherwise perfect flesh had been a faint line across her shoulder, where she had learned the hard way that tree branches could be incredibly sharp during a trail run, and a three inch long divot two thirds of the way between her navel and her right hip, a reminder of just how far her field had progressed within her lifetime.

No, throughout her childhood, she'd never really had to deal with the itching uncomfortableness of healing wounds. The only time she'd had to deal with stitches was when she was so little she scarely remembered the procedure, and even the scar on her shoulder had become one largely more because it was in a place along her trapezius that was difficult to cover with vitamin E lotion. She was much more accustomed to injuries that were treated with compression wraps and elevation. Injuries that healed with dull aches, not firey, searing, burning pain.

All that had changed when she had met Jane. Everything about their friendship had spurred her to do new and different things. And with those new things had come new scars. Where her pale flesh had largely been unmarred up until four years ago, she now bore a collection of permanent memories. A small bloom of not-quite-matching-the-skin-around-them dots on her forearm where after too many glasses of wine, Jane had taught her how to make something deliciously deep-fried and the hot oil had caught her by surprise. A two inch divot along her hip where Jane had forced her into "proper" clothes to learn how to play softball and where sliding into second she'd discovered that bases were really rather hard and unforgiving on contact. A faint white streak across the back of her hand where she'd been shown how to throw a proper punch - only to miss the bag and clip the pole behind it. A two inch long faint line across her neck where she had learned what true, utter fear was.

And now two matching parrallel lines across her calf that weren't just itching, but throbbing and burning and reminding her that she had, less than a week ago nearly lost her leg - and her life - in the middle of nowhere and regained something she had feared was lost forever. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, taking a deep breath, attempting to recall meditation techniques to block out the pain. She supposed she had brought this on herself. At least the intensity of the pain was something that she could have prevented. She could have worn flats. Jane had chided her at even considering wearing heels, and had been amazed that her idea of compromise had been what were, in her mind, rather tame three inch wedges.

She didn't have to do the autopsy herself. She wasn't the only medical examiner, simply the chief. There were a collection of other, qualified doctors that she supervised that she trusted completely. Even Pike, who wasn't wholly incompetent, just far more used to figuring out whether a morbidly obese person had died of a myocardial infarction or diabetic ketoacidosis for life insurance companies, not what caliber of bullet was used to shoot somebody. But as much as she trusted the other medical examiners she worked with, she did not spend four years in medical school, and six more training under others to be appointed Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to _not _use that power. As the chief, she got to pick and chose what cases she wanted for herself. And she would not even pretend that she didnt't take the interesting bodies for herself. The suspicious deaths belonged to her. The only times she delegated out murders were when she had something far more intriguing than another dead gangbanger.

And those killed in ancient Norse torture rituals were _definitely_ interesting. There was no way that she was going to pass that off on one of her assistants, on one of the few poor souls that had decided that the coroners office was exactly where they wanted to do their residency. She knew Jane was already irate at getting passed over for the investigation. Even though the detective had walked away from the reservoir with no worse physical injuries than a few scrapes and bruises, Cavanaugh had still put Crowe in charge of the investigation. And while she would have much rather been working with Jane, and Frost and Korsak rather than dealing with an abrupt, bordering on rude man, it wasnt't her place to pick who investigated the stories behind the bodies that found their way to a stainless steel table in front of her. In the classic 5 W's of investigation, it was her place to answer the when, the what, the how, nothing more.

And now, after spending four hours standing over the body, her injury was very much making itself known. It hadn't been so bad when she was focused intently on the autopsy itself, but now that she was seated, working on turning her findings into a more easily digestable report, she was most definitely aware of what she had gone through five days previously as she dug the pads of her fingers into the soft fabric of her slacks, feeling the white gauze beneath, doing her best to not scratch at her stitches, as difficult as it was. She sighed as she reached towards the top drawer of her desk and the bottle of ibuprofen that was kept there for the rare tension headache that cropped up at a time where immediate relief was more important than taking the time to meditate away the pain before realizing that she had taken two naproxen when she had come in, scarcely four and a half hours prior.

She knew the odds were in her favor, that it took repeated misuse of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to risk any sort of damages. That taking two ibuprofen over four hours after taken two naproxen once would not lead to renal damage, would not greatly increase her chance of peptic ulcer, would do her no harm. But she had never been a risk taker. Even the most daring things she did were done after carefully weighing odds and options. She did not act first and think later. She was always aware of every possible outcome to every situation. And she was aware that short of putting her findings into a report there was nothing she had to do except catch up on the never ending stack of paperwork. Invoices to be accounted for in the yearly budget. A letter or recommendation for one of her interns that she had been meaning to write since the second week of the woman's term. There was still another month left, but she'd already seen all she needed of the small, almost imperceptable woman who seemed to do what interns were made to do - that is allow those that got the paychecks to work extremely efficiently while never actually making atheir presence known - better than anyone she'd ever seen.

There was nothing that actually required much thought. So as she reached into her purse for the stout orange bottle therein, she washed down two with a sip of the juice she'd had on hand since that morning. She focused on her report, feeling the throbbing burn in her calf slowly fade away to a barely there itch as she worked. She wasn't even aware of how much time had passed until there was the familiar singular rap against her doorframe, not really a knock, just the announcing of an arrival. "You busy?" She looked up at where Jane was leaning against the door in a perfectly refined slouch.

"Typing the report on the Fiske murder." She could see the flash of indignation in dark eyes. Jane was still upset at getting passed over.

"You wanna put it on hold? I've got a mean craving for burgers. I'll even eat something green with it."

"Ten minutes?" She bargained. There really wasn't much left to do with her findings, and she could easily finish it in less than that, but her money hadn't come from nowhere, and her great-grandfather, tycoon that he was, had taught her the art of negotiation when she was a little girl and it had stuck with her ever since.

"Maur-a" she tried not to frown at the whining way the two syllables of her name were whiningly extended.

"Ten minutes." She offered again, not so much a compromise as a statement of fact.

"But I'm hungry!" This was something that she hadn't missed in the weeks they'd been fighting. There were times Jane's whining could be adorable. And there were times that Jane's uncanny resemblance in attitude to a tired, hungry, two year old were simply aggrivating. She shifted in her seat, feeling the ache begin to throb in her leg again, no longer having the comforting distraction of work.

"You can wait." There was an eyeroll she didn't even need to look up to catch. She turned back to the computer, finding her place easily. But now that she'd been made aware of her pain, it was that much harder to block out. She shifted again, attenpting to readjust where it was balanced, elevated beneath her desk.

"Your leg all right? I mean I didn't mangle it, did I?" It was odd, how Jane could try her patience one moment, and the next have her wondering how she had ever managed to spend two weeks with a slow burn of anger, much less two whole month upset at someone so caring, so compassionate. She knew, oh she did, but thinking of the reasons why only seemed to increase the amount of pain she was in

"It's slightly sore." She looked up to see Jane smirk slightly.

"It wouldn't hurt like a son of a bitch if you didn't insist on wearing those flamingo legs you call shoes."

"My shoes are perfectly sensible."

"Yeah, if you want to be featured on the cover of _How to Break Your Neck_ digest." She fought the urge to roll her eyes back. Somehwere over the last few years she had picked up that habit, another thing she had inherited from Jane. Along with an unknown enjoyment for ground beef products, macro-brewed beer, Italian deserts that had to have calorie counts in the five digit range, there were more than just marks on her flesh she had picked up from her unlikely friendship with the detective.

"Just because you have no appreciation for fashion-"

"Hey, when have I said I don't appreciate it? But I can't even walk in pumps, much less the skyscrapers you wear. And its kinda hard to chase down the bad guys if you can't take five steps without spraining an ankle. Now c'mon, let's go grab something from the Robber." She looked over her report briefly, confirming that all the pertinent details were in it, and emailed a copy to Crowe before standing to join Jane.

The flash of burning bright white was instantaneous as she put weight on her leg and she took a deep breath as she attempted to keep from wincing. Jane was at her side in a flash, slinging one arm around her while the other fished through pockets. She frowned as Jane found what had been searched for, shoving two white, oblong pills at her. "I'm fine." She attempted to argue.

"I know you hate taking painkillers, but c'mon, you can hardly stand."

"I'd really rather not."

"You don't even have my excuse of these things making you loopy. I've seen you on morphine, you still manage to be all walking wikipedia." She frowned, knowing better than to argue about wikipedia's inaccuracies. "Just take them. You wound up having your leg sliced open with gorilla glass in a field, you're allowed to be in pain." She could see the steely resolve in dark eyes as the pills were forced into her hand and her juice shoved at her as well. She contemplated arguing the fact, but at the same time, knew that it was a futile exercise, deciding that it would be quicker and easier for her to simply take them. A quick glance at the clock confirmed that it had been some time since she had taken the last two, and if Jane wasn't going to relent it wouldn't harm her. She wasn't one to habitually take any medication, much less abuse it. The most she took outside of the odd dose of ibuprofen was a rare diphenhydramine when forced to be in close contact with one of the few allergens that triggered a histamine release in her. Ten more miligrams of hydrocodone, and six hundred and fifty more miligrams of acetaminophen would do her no damage. And it would save her an arguement. To mention she had taken two earlier and was still in pain would elicit needless worry and implorations to go home.

And she definitely wasn't about to leave early.

She swallowed them down and took a cautious step towards the doorway. Jane was still at her side, helping to take some of the weight off of her leg. She did her best to not limp as they headed to the elevator. She was fine, just recovering. She wasn't weak, and she knew that limping wasn't weakness, but it still felt that way. "Please tell me that the most interesting thing you found with the Fiske case was just how they found him. If Crowe gets a really fun one just cause Cavanaugh thinks I should take it easy, I'm gonna be pissed. _You're_ the broken one, and you still get to do your job."

"Other than the fact that his lungs were removed through two very rough dorsal incisions while he was still alive, he was otherwise unremarkable."

"Damn Cavanaugh. I'm stuck doing paperwork. God, if I wanted to sit and stare at a computer screen and file folders all day I'd have become an accountant." She smiled slightly, understanding the sentiment. It was the reason she had chosen not to go into academia. She was unhappy with being inactive. And while she didn't harbor the same intense hatred for paperwork that Jane did, she knew if her job consisted of nothing else, she would be happier squandering away her trust fund than to go in to an office simply to sit behind a desk all day. "Not to mention the printer is I swear the one from Office Space only I can't beat the shit out of this one." The reference was lost on her, and Jane looked at her pensive look. "You've never seen Office Space? Well that settles what we're watching next movie night." She enjoys their movie nights, she always has, Jane's taste in films always a welcoming surprise. And over the last two months, she had certainly missed the end of a long day, coming home to some sort of takeout she wouldn't otherwise eat and movies she would not otherwise watch.

"Great." By the time she reached the Robber, she could feel the hydrocodone Jane had all but forced down her throat starting to kick in. The pain in her leg had subsided, and she found herself very aware of the beautiful early autumn afternoon. The leaves were just starting to lose their vibrant sheen, the stores shifting from _back to school_ everything and were instead setting out scarecrows, and the air was tingling with the smell of pumpkin spiced everything. And as she walked into the small sports bar more easily than she had left the precinct thanks to the painkillers, she was hopeful that autumn would be long and winter short. While Jane was accurate in that she didn't become different from herself, or have the detective's usual reaction, which was to become giggly and uncharacteristcally talkative, she wasn't immune to the effects of the drug. She was aware of a warmth spreading through her, and she found herself eying menu selections different from her usual choices. No, she wasn't immune to the effects, she just didn't have an overt reaction to them.

"So why would someone yank a guys lungs out his back?"

"The blood eagle is an ancient Norse torture practice, although some scholars believe it is an exaggeration, and that no one was ever historically killed in that way. Acording to the saga poems written at -" there was a glare shot in her direction.

"I was done with history after I graduated. Don't need the lesson now. So someone killed Fiske in an ancient viking torture thing. Musta held one hell of a grudge." She understood her friend's frustration, but at the same time she knew the personalities involved - both the man assigned to the case, and Jane's. And she knew that providing any more information would simply fuel Jane's urge to work a case that had been explicitly forbidden.

"Jane-"

"What? Its interesting, that's all." She said nothing in response. She could not dispute how interesting it was. "What does Crowe have for motive so far?"

"I don't know." The honestly in the sentence went unspoken, unnessecary. She truly didn't know. She didn't follow up much with the autopsies she performed for other detectives. She didn't share small talk with others, didn't talk work over lunches with other detectives, only knew what happened with other investigations through reading case files.

"Well, its gotta be something good. What made the wounds?"

"Jane-" she warned again. This was not Jane's case. This was not who she should be discussing her findings with.

"Fine." There's a frustrated glare thrown her way, and it halts her for a moment. She wasn't sure where their relationship stood, wasn't sure what to make of this change in terms. Wasn't sure how lightly to tread. They had finally found a point of equalibrium, and she did not want to upset that.

"Movie night?" She questioned, a safer subject than work for conversation.

"I got wenesday off this week. Tuesday then?" She wondered, for a moment, what it would be like to work a normal 9-5, monday-Friday job. She was used to odd hours, late nights, unconventional days off. Its a blessing, at times, to have weekdays off and only have housewives to fight against while running errands. At other times, she hated it, when normal Friday night activities got shoved to tuesdays.

Their lunch passed with no other talk of work, but there was a stiltedness there, both of them wary. She could tell Jane was unsure of just what to talk about, more fidgety than usual, and she was almost glad for things to be over. Yes, she had missed the easy companionship, missed having someone to talk to, missed this. But it wasn't quite the same as this used to be. There was something different between them now, and they were both afraid of crossing a line, both afraid of upsetting the balanced point they had found, where they could enjoy a meal together, could plan a night on the couch watching movies, and go back to being friends.

The drive back was silent and she listened to the quiet hum of the air conditioner, its low drone the only focus of her thoughts. She focused on the sound, rather than the silence and what it meant. Things had changed between them, almost irrepairably. Things _had been_ changing between them for a long time. The better part of a year. Ever since a cold night in a prison infirmary, they hadn't truly been the same. There was something there that had shifted. They had grown closer, united by a mutual horror, and at the same time it had caused something irrevocable. She found herself glancing across the car to where two hands flowed down from a willowy form to wrap around a steering wheel, raised flesh illuminated by the sun's angry glare as it filtered through the trees that towered over them, a permanent mark - a stigmata of sorts, that was an ever present reminder of the devils in the world.

And when good had conquered evil, the crucified rising and forcibly rolling away every barrier so that her world through Jane might be saved, it had changed something. Something big, something important, something unnameable, unspeakable. True, they had retuned to Jane's apartment, to a surprise party themed around a childhood fantasy, and smiled and laughed and pretended that everything was the same. But she had seen the look in Jane's eyes as a scalpel plunged through a chest, and it haunted her sometimes. The pure fury and fear that came about because _he_ had come after _her_ and she knew that no one else, not Angela, not Frankie, not Casey, or Dean or _anyone _would spark that look in dark eyes. And when she saw that primal reaction, even through the murky haze of thousands of volts of electricity coursing through her body, she knew something had forever shifted between them.

The fight they'd had had been long in the making. A distance they had needed to put between themselves, to find themselves again. It had come out in dribs and drabs as the months had progressed before it finally crashed down around them. She had found herself attempting to do what she could to forget about The Look, and what its implications meant, going so far as to engage in an uncharacteristic daytime tryst with someone that was almost, but not quite the same, that she could almost trick herself into believing that she was simply chasing after danger and ferocity and tenacity started with a simple offer to keep her skills at self-reliance finely honed. They'd tried to have the fight, the final severance they needed to stay afloat, when Tommy was unjustly accused, and she refused to trust Jane enough to risk everything she had built herself up to be. And then she'd rocked the boat that much more over disgustingly mislabled wine.

The fight that they'd had was almost necessary in a way, because neither of them would ever flee. True, she had had every reason in the world to be angry with Jane. Jane who had come to see her out of self serving interest and not concern. Jane, who put her in a posistion to play god over a man she hardly knew, having to make the decision of whether or not heroic measures should be taken on a villain. Jane, who pulled away those closest thing she had to a mother while her own was recouperating. Jane, who had used that action to try and avoid the implications of what The Look had meant that night. But she was the one that had stood her ground and steadfastly refused to cave and show kindness. Because she had seen The Look, and she was terrified of it, of what it meant, and the way that it had changed them.

Which left them here, with the stilted awkwardness of attempting to fall back into the routine they had had prior to a cold night in a prison infirmary, trying to pretend that what had happened hadn't, that they were still the same that they had been. Unsure of what to talk about when they could not talk of work. And she was thankful that she did not have to focus on The Look and what it meant as she got out of the car, sun glaring angrily down at her, that she could find some peace in focusing instead on the cooling early autmn day, the traffic roaring past, the quiet bleat of The Eagle's second most famous song piping through the awning of a nearby shop, the simple beauty of Boston in the fall.

She refocused on the hum of the air conditioner as she returned to her desk, mechannically going through her invoices without actually thinking, keying numbers into a spreadsheet, letting the computer do the work. The sound echoed through the morgue like a peal of distant thunder, the quiet intensity of a quickly growing storm. Things were different. Things had changed, were changing, she had changed and she was marked, scarred by the changes and as she scatched idly at the itch in her calf, she focused on the hum of the air conditioner to avoid focusing on what the itching of the healing wound meant.

A/N and there's a song woven in to the latter half of this chap that also serves as mood music for the chap, bonus points if you can tease it out. Its a lot more subtle than in the not-quite-songfics I write, but its there.


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